This blog is a service of Alston & Bird's Privacy & Data Security team and focuses on key data privacy and data security issues.

Tag Archives: Mobile Technologies

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) announced that InMobi, a Singapore-based mobile advertising company whose products are used by many Android and iOS app makers to deliver advertisements to consumers, will pay $950,000 in civil penalties and implement a comprehensive privacy program to settle FTC charges for deceptively tracking the locations of hundreds of millions of consumers, including children, without their knowledge or consent to serve them geo-targeted advertising.
The FTC alleges that InMobi represented that its advertising software would only collect consumer’s geo-location [...] Read more

Peter Swire, senior counsel in Alston & Bird’s Privacy & Data Security Group and Georgia Institute of Technology Scheller College of Business professor was quoted in International Business Times regarding privacy compliance concerns for the soon-to-be rating app “Peeple.” The app, nicknamed “Yelp for Humans” by the media, will allegedly allow users to review other people without having to obtain permission to create a profile on their behalf. In addition, the user will be asked to enter a cell phone number for the person for whom they are creating a profile.
There are multiple [...] Read more

Peter Swire and Dominique Shelton will be featured speakers at the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) 2015 Privacy. Security. Risk. Conference, hosted by the IAPP Privacy Academy and CSA Congress. The conference will be held in Las Vegas on September 28-October 1, 2015. Leading innovators and practitioners in the field will be covering various topics relating to privacy and cloud security.
On October 1, 1:15pm-2:15pm, Peter will be a featured speaker during the session "HIPAA Then and Now and the Valuable Insights of Monday Morning Quarterbacks."
On September 30, [...] Read more

The European Data Protection Supervisor (“EDPS”), Giovanni Buttarelli, has published an opinion on Mobile Health (“mHealth”); a rapidly evolving sector that stems from the convergence of healthcare and information communication technology. mHealth includes mobile applications designed to provide health-related services through smart devices by processing personal information about an individual’s health, well-being, and lifestyle.
The opinion discusses the growing ubiquity of mHealth, which in large part is due to the proliferation of smartphones and wearable computing devices. [...] Read more

On December 9, 2014, a joint open letter (“Letter”) was issued to the operators of seven (7) app marketplaces, urging them to “make the basic commitment to require each app that can access or collect personal information, to provide users with timely access to the app’s privacy policy.” Although the Letter was sent to Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Nokia, BlackBerry and Amazon.com, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (“OPC”) explains that it is intended for all companies that operate app marketplaces.
The Letter was issued by twenty-three (23) privacy enforcement [...] Read more

California Attorney General Kamala Harris reiterated her commitment to enforcing the state’s Online Privacy Protection Act following her re-election and to pursuing guidelines advising companies how she will interpret the act.
Dominique Shelton, a partner in the firm’s Privacy & Data Security Group, called Harris’ guidelines “groundbreaking” in privacy protection and allows her clients to focus on compliance instead of becoming a test case for enforcement.
“I think we’re only getting started. The attorney general views this as a growing area that [...] Read more

Three groups of defendants have agreed to pay the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) $9.3 million to settle claims that they operated a scam to send unsolicited and deceptive text messages to millions of consumers. The settlement is the result of a major campaign by the FTC targeting senders of unsolicited commercial messages using the promise of free gifts or products to get consumers to reveal “personal information for sale to marketers, their mobile numbers to cram unwanted charges on their bill, and to drive them to paid subscriptions for which the senders receive affiliate referral fees.” [...] Read more

The European Union’s Article 29 Data Protection Working Party (WP29) adopted an opinion (the Opinion) on September 16, 2014 regarding data protection within the Internet of Things (IoT). Recognizing the rapid growth of the IoT, the Opinion responds to emerging data privacy concerns within the IoT, and provides recommendations for stakeholder compliance with EU data protection laws.
The IoT is made up of the universe of “smart” devices and applications that communicate with each other electronically. The Opinion focuses on a subset of three IoT applications: 1) “wearable [...] Read more

On April 17, 2014, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) issued a press release, announcing that the FTC is seeking public comments to explore mobile security issues. The press release refers to the mobile security forum held last year to examine the state of mobile security (the “Forum”). In the press release, the FTC invites comments from the public to expand on a number of complex issues discussed at the Forum with an eye towards a report.
The FTC explained last year that mobile threats, such as lost or stolen devices, or malicious or privacy-infringing applications, [...] Read more